Thinking the EU budget post 2020

The need to consider the crucial role of European regions

Discussions on the post 2020 EU budget will soon be launched. Debates on the future EU budget are traditionally animated. The forthcoming discussion will not deviate from this rule. This debate will take place in a context of budget restriction, both at the national and regional level. At the same time, without an in-depth reform of the EU’s own resources system, prospect for future at the Community level will be limited.

In this constrained environment, the question of “how to spend public money in a better way” is raised in an acute way. At the EU level, the current debate on the future of the EU budget reveals that the focus is nowadays on “how to spend better together” rather than “how to spend much more together”. In this respect, there is a growing interest on the possibility of achieving efficiency gains by reinforcing the coordination of regional, national and EU spending and by adopting an aggregate vision of total public spending in the EU. In other words, to strengthen the multi-level governance of public nance in the EU appears as a mean to increase the efficiency of public expenditure.

The purpose of this paper is to show the benefits of adopting an aggregate approach to analyse public finance in the EU and to focus on the crucial role of regional level in some area policy.

Amélie BARBIER-GAUCHARD (abarbier@unistra.fr) is Assistant Professor in Economics with the higher degree “Accreditation to Supervise Research » at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Strasbourg. She conducts research in the BETA Research Unit (Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics). As expert in the multi-level governance of public finance within the EU, her research topics are economic policy, fiscal policy tools and European integration.

To read the entire article on think EU Budget Post 2020 check out the 2017 Report.

The Report on the state of Regionalisation in Europe.

More than 40 experts contributed to this work, by delivering detailed reports about the state of regionalisation and multilevel governance in chosen European countries. The study covers 41 countries, and each country report is based on a similar structure, thereby allowing a comparative approach among all studied countries.

The first part of the report gives the political impetus from the main European stakeholders

The second part of this report entails a summarised version of the country reports. The objective is to provide interested readers with a short overview of the main features of regionalisation in various European countries. The complete versions of the country reports are available on the AER website, under LINK

The third part provides a thematic approach based on the main findings delivered by the country reports and the current state of regionalisation in Europe. The trends and outlooks lead to open questions on the future of the regions in the European landscape, and more broadly on the role of subnational authorities in the shaping of the continent.

The fourth part gives the floor to the actual regional decision-makers in Europe, across a series of interviews and statements by Presidents, Vice-Presidents and elected representatives of the European regions.

Over the next months, we will be focusing on a different European country’s approach to regionalisation. During these months, look out for #RoR2017 on Twitter and/or Facebook and follow us at @europeanregions.